Obamarama

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

As U.S. imperialism loses its capacity to compete outside the military sphere, its foreign policy options shrink, accordingly. “Since the U.S. is superior to the rest of the world ONLY in military terms, Washington finds its ultimate advantage in turning the whole world into a battlefield.” Permanent War follows the same logic as a death cult. In fact, one created the other – literally.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In private practice Loretta Lynch was a “white collar crime specialist” keeping banksters, tax evaders and money launderers out of jail. She did exactly that at Obama's Justice Department, passing get out of jail cards in the biggest money laundering cases in history. She's pro-death penalty, against legalizing weed or demilitarizing cops, sees no evil in drone murder, war crimes or runaway surveillance. And she's the next Attorney General.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

What has the first Black U.S. attorney general accomplished? Nothing more nor less “than what Bill Clinton or any other center-right white corporate Democrat” would have done in service of the rich. His replacement seems cut from the same careerist cloth – and might be to the right of Holder. For the Congressional Black Caucus, however, it's sufficient that Lynch is “an African American legal scholar.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

It’s been so long since Black America has experienced a grassroots movement, most folks don’t have a clue how to measure its success. The Black Lives Matter campaign has already accomplished a fundamental task, despite the lack of indictment against Michael Brown’s killer. “The movement has unmasked Obama as the Oppressor-in-Chief and exposed the Black Misleadership Class as fawning accomplices to the dehumanization of the rest of us.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

President Obama says things are looking up for America – which is exactly how Wall Street sees it. For the seventh time, Obama assessed the state of the nation from the perspective of a “center-right presidency whose real accomplishment has been to re-inflate the Wall Street casino, flush the last vestiges of secure employment out of the economy, and put the imperial war machine back on the offensive.”

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Former New York Times reporter James Risen got most of the coverage in the Obama administration’s latest espionage trial, but the defendant is a Black man. Jeffrey Sterling is not guilty of espionage – none of the defendants in Obama’s cases are – but he is an accessory to the crimes of his former employer, the CIA. “ Sterling lay down with dogs and got up with fleas.

by Pascal Robert

There’s nothing “enlightened” about President Obama shift in policy on Cuba. Growing U.S. isolation from Latin America has opened opportunities for Washington’s global rivals. Russia has proposed a raft of agreements with Cuba and other Latin countries, and “China has now strongly entered the Latin nations with its plan to build a canal through Nicaragua to rival the Panama Canal.”

by Solomon Comissiong

After January, 2017, “the delusional fantasy will be over for most African/black people in this country.” What will Black folks have to show for their near-absolute loyalty to Barack Obama? Nothing more than, maybe, a historically revisionist t-shirt “with Obama’s face wedged in between Malcolm X and MLK.”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The U.S.-Saudi oil price war against Russia, like the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, is “a calculated act of desperate men, based on the inescapable facts of imperial decline and the logic of class survival.” In their doomed attempt to stay on top, U.S. imperialists and their clients risk burning down the global house. “But, that’s what any ruling class would do when staring death in the face.”

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

The imperial mentality is not limited to the right wing of the American political spectrum. Some purported leftists greeted the opening to Cuba as if recognition by the U.S. was the greatest thing that ever happened to the island nation. The Cubans don’t see it that way, although they wanted the deal. “President Raul Castro stated in no uncertain terms that Cuba will remain socialist and will not extradite Assata Shakur or anyone else granted asylum by the government.”

by Howard Wait

“High Deductible Health Care Model” is President Obama’s legacy to the American people, complete with “skinny networks, overpriced medicines and more tricks and traps than a Halloween funhouse.” But, no need to worry. “After the deductible is paid, which will be never, health care is free!”

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

After sending an extra hundred FBI agents to Ferguson in the days just before the grand jury decision, the White House invited young activists opposing police murder and impunity to a Monday meeting with the president. Black Agenda Report spoke briefly with Mr. Phillip Agnew of Dream Defenders, asking what was gained or lost.NOTE: This article has been significantly amended since initial publication on Dec 3, including the insertion of several links, most notably one to Davey D's much longer interview with Phillip Agnew of the Dream Defenders at its very end, which was broadcast on KPFA-FM after our initial publication date.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

In secrecy and deceit, President Obama reversed his promised phase-out of the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan. Which simply proves that Obama “is no different than any other U.S. imperial leader – except that he is a more accomplished liar than most.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Federal court judges ruled workers forced to stand in line without pay several hours each week before leaving work deserved to be paid. Amazon.com, their boss disagreed and it's now in the Supreme Court. So why did President Obama's Justice and Labor Departments each file briefs agreeing with Amazon and other wage-stealing retailers that bosses should have more freedom to define “work” in ways that allow them to force more unpaid labor from their workforces.

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

Talk about holding President Obama's feet to the fire was always empty noise, as many making it surely knew. In fact the US political system provides few or no ways for anyone except the wealthy to influence what legislators, judges, governors or presidents do, and many ways to ensure that those (s)elected to high office are disposed to protect the rights of the 1% against the 99%. Clearly, the First Black President is only serving his corporate masters, not serving us.

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

Vice President Joe Biden was forced to apologize to Arab emirs and kings for blaming them for arming and funding the Islamic State. He neglected to mention his own boss’s complicity. “Biden spoke from a state of deep denial, a visceral refusal to accept that the United States is no longer capable of controlling the chaos it has inflicted on the Middle East.”

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

“Eric Holder and his boss have done incalculable damage to the life prospects of Black people.” Nevertheless, African Americans are eager to give high marks to a man who has demolished due process and the rule of law and given the white filthy rich impunity from prosecution. Holder has also “helped set the stage for a new wave of assaults on urban Blacks and their electoral rights as a class” through his assent to disenfranchisement of Detroit.

by Danny Haiphong

The U.S. government has finally invented a national “snitch” program big enough to encompass the treachery of Al Sharpton. Under the new program, “community leaders” are taught to identify and rat-out radicals in their midst – a task for which Sharpton serves as the perfect role model. “Sharpton is committed to defusing potential Black rebellion on behalf of the Obama Administration.”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The U.S. bombing campaign over Syria has two objectives: (1) “ISIS must be punished, to reduce its appeal to the jihadist rank and file, who make up the bulk of effective fighters arrayed against the Syrian state; and (2), jihadists that remain loyal to their paymasters must be rewarded with victories on the battlefield, through U.S. air power. Obama will switch quickly to direct air aggression against the Syrian State.

by Roberto Lovato

Candidate Barack Obama promised Latino voters an accessible road to citizenship for the undocumented. He has delivered 2 million deportations, and with his Latino enablers, nearly as many excuses. Will Hispanic Heritage Month be the time to call out the Latino political class for being just about as venal, slavish and useless as the black political class?

by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

If Ferguson represents a new beginning for Black movement politics, then any electoral efforts must aim to “create governments whose promise to the people is to cease cooperating with the machinery that enforces the New Jim Crow.” It emphatically does not mean the Democratic Party, “which has encaged Black politics for roughly the same period as the Mass Black Incarceration State has encaged Black bodies in the world’s largest gulag.”

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

President Obama behaves as if he lives in an alternative universe, one in which ISIS and other jihadists in Syria were not armed and funded by the U.S. and its allies, and Russian-speaking Ukrainians did not rise up of their own volition against the fascist takeover in Kiev. Russian President Putin seems like a great leader, in comparison, if only because he speaks in the language of reality.

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

How did the NAACP wrap up its national conference this weekend without saying a mumbling word about the genocidal bombing of Gaza? Why did Moral Monday's Rev. Barber appear on HBO's Real Time with notorious Islamaphobe Bill Maher and not speak to the morality of apartheid in Israel? Why are the black political class and the black church, invisible on the invasion of Gaza and the fact of Israeli ethnocracy in general?

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The deeper the U.S. slips into economic decline, the higher it ratchets up the pace and stakes of armed conflict. Washington appears to have crossed some kind of Rubicon, to embark “on a mad, scorched earth policy to terrorize the planet into submission through relentless escalation into a global state of war.”

by Danny Haiphong

The left should not participate in, “and thus provide consent for, the rule of imperialism every four years.” Say “No” to the charade. “Barack Obama's two-term presidency has been a lesson for the entire left that voting for a Wall Street politician within the imperialist state can only bring more misery and political confusion, not less.”

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

A couple years ago, we at Black Agenda Report wondered why the closings of 40 public schools over three years in Philly and 50 schools in Chicago were not national news. The answer of course, was that corporate media and politicians from Romney and Obama down to black mayors and state legislators agree that public education ought to be handed to business groups and charter schools even though privatization is enormously unpopular.

Although Obama promised to protect internet access for everyone, rule changes proposed by his FCC chief will make the internet a toll road. Failure to restore the internet's common carrier status will let greedy corporations pretending be something they'll call “the market” to restrict access to any content that isn't theirs or doesn't pay to be seen. But it's not a done deal yet. There's still time to make your voice heard...

by Paul Street

Frederick Harris’ very useful book on the “high price” – to Black folks – of the nation’s First Black President has been reissued in paperback. However, Harris gives Obama too much credit as a president of all the people. “Like the great majority of U.S. presidents,” writes Paul Street, “Obama has been first and foremost a representative of the American white ruling class.”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Republican refusal to accept Barack Obama as a Grand Bargain partner has once again saved Social Security from cuts desired by both the White House and the GOP. Liberals are congratulating themselves, but gridlock is the real hero.

by Raymond Nat Turner

Our new web site is almost here. The first stage of our makeover was moving our 8 years of content to new servers, which we did over the holidays. The second stage was optimizing the performance of those new servers, which we finished after a brief outage last Thursday. The third stage will be rolling out the new site, with restored images, better sound and new features, coming by the end of this month. Thank you for your patience.

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